by Mark Roberts
‘Wren, put your hand down,’ said McKee.
Wren didn’t move, kept his hand frozen in mid-air.
Clay walked in front of Wren, filmed the look of righteous solemnity on his face as he walked towards Edgar McKee.
‘Hand down, Wren. That’s a good lad.’
Wren held an index finger to his lips and made a soft shushing sound.
‘Captain Cyclone and agents in the field are safe, Edgar. Thanks to you and me.’
‘Captain Cyclone isn’t real, Wren. I really don’t know what you mean. There are no agents in the field.’
‘Pardon?’ asked Wren.
‘It’s a game we play.’
‘It was all in my head. You made it come to life. And now you’re saying it’s not real? Is that what you’re saying, Colonel Edgar McKee?’
The light in Wren’s eyes faded and was quickly replaced by darkness and hurt.
‘It’s all right, Wren. We can work all this out,’ said Clay. ‘Separate the fact from the fiction.’
She turned her iPhone on Edgar McKee, saw him tailspin into sudden confusion.
‘This is all really highly irregular,’ said Ms Davis with a moral outrage that simply didn’t ring true.
The door leading into the corridor of interview suites opened behind Clay, and the coldness of the night outside came in with the caller.
‘Ms Davis, it’s not as irregular as young women being murdered, scalped and having their faces ripped off post-mortem,’ said Clay. ‘We’re going to talk Captain Cyclone to you, Wren, after we’ve talked Captain Cyclone to Edgar, here.’
‘She’s tricking you, Wren,’ said McKee. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, neither have I. But she wants to make you feel like you’ve done something wrong. That’s her role in this world. Say something, Wren. Let me know that we’re still mates.’
‘We’re still mates.’ Wren looked as if he was about to break down into floods of tears and was digging down to his deepest grit to hold himself together. ‘Are you feeling better, Edgar?’
‘I’m right as rain, mate.’
‘Have you stopped going to the toilet?’
McKee looked at his solicitor and at Clay.
‘Are you going to interview me or what?’
‘That’s what I brought you down here for. Sergeant Harris, please escort Mr McKee into the interview suite and then take Wren back down to the cells.’
McKee walked past Clay as he followed Sergeant Harris into the interview suite, looked at her, the rising darkness inside him forming in his eyes. ‘You’re clutching at straws. You’re pathetic.’
‘Take a seat in the interview suite, Mr McKee. Detective Sergeant Hendricks is waiting for you. And calm yourself down.’
Winters handed Clay a piece of paper.
‘It’s what he got up to last night with Marlene Black, aka Susan Hurst.’
Clay unfolded the paper, noticed the neatness of the writing and the filth within it.
‘Charmed, I’m sure. Clive, go check out the CCTV at the Travelodge.’
98
11.51 pm
Clay took her place next to Hendricks across the table from Edgar McKee and his solicitor, and didn’t take her eyes away from his reptilian gaze.
‘I’ve got some good news for you, Mr McKee. For now, at least.’
‘You saw it with your own eyes, Clay, and heard it with your own ears just out there. Anything Robin Wren may or may not have said to you counts for shit. He’s intelligent, yes. But he’s disabled and lives in a world of his own. What do you say to that?’ asked McKee.
‘I’d say that it’s my place to ask questions and yours to answer them.’
Clay looked at the words on the page in her hand, felt the sharpness of the irony of the pastel flowers that adorned its borders.
‘What were you doing, Mr McKee, between eight and ten o’clock last night?’
He smiled as he gazed back at Clay.
‘I told you the first time we met. I was in the Travelodge by Liverpool One with a prostitute.’
‘Her name?’
‘Marlene Black.’
‘Is that her real name?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘How long were you with her?’
‘I booked her for two hours.’
‘Are you a regular client of hers?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘What did you do together?’ asked Clay.
‘Sex. What do you think we’d do? Play Monopoly?’
‘Specifically, what kind of sex did you have?’
Edgar McKee looked at his solicitor, the smile on his face now gone.
‘I don’t see where this is going, DCI Clay,’ said Ms Davis.
‘We’ve been to see her. She wrote down on this piece of paper what kind of sex Mr McKee had with her. She suggested to DC Winter that if I asked Mr McKee what kind of sexual activity had passed between them, that it would make the alibi she was giving him more concrete. I’m giving Mr McKee a break.’
‘Answer the question, Mr McKee,’ instructed Ms Davis.
‘Oral sex and anal sex,’ said Edgar McKee, in a flat voice that sounded like it could have been ordering fish and chips.
Clay slid the paper across the table to Edgar McKee and said, ‘Bullseye. Well done. She speaks very highly of you, according to DC Winters.’
‘I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know her real name. But I give her a lot of work because she’s good at her job, end of.’
‘There’s no personal relationship between the two of you?’ asked Hendricks.
‘Get real. It’s money for sex and sex for money. That’s what I call an honest relationship. I’ve got an alibi. I didn’t fucking kidnap anyone. I was with a pro. Can I go home now?’
‘No, certainly not,’ said Clay. ‘Your twenty-four hours isn’t up yet. And besides, your flat’s being treated as a crime scene. If you do get out from here, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to stay until we’re ready.’
Ms Davis turned to McKee, held her hand up to cover her mouth and whispered in his ear.
‘Do you want to bring it up?’ he asked.
‘DCI Clay,’ said Ms Davis. ‘The murders and abductions in Liverpool are linked to a murder in Warrington last August. Correct?’
‘It’s the same killer,’ confirmed Clay.
‘My client, Mr McKee, wasn’t in the country during that time. I’ve contacted easyJet and they’re going to send confirmation that he flew to Amsterdam on July 30th 2021 and returned to Liverpool John Lennon Airport on August 18th.’
‘We’ll do the same,’ said Clay. ‘Had Mr McKee mentioned this to us, that would have been the very first thing we’d have done.’
‘I didn’t mention it, Clay, because I wasn’t even aware that some poor woman in Warrington had been abducted and murdered last August,’ said McKee.
‘It was a massive news story,’ said Hendricks.
‘Not in Amsterdam it wasn’t.’
‘The story rolled on into the autumn, the investigation by the Warrington police. You had no idea?’
‘I don’t follow the fucking news, for God’s sake, it’s depressing shit.’
‘When did you first become aware of the murder of Sandra O’Day?’ asked Hendricks.
Edgar McKee looked again at his solicitor with a puzzled expression and a shortening fuse.
‘That’s the name of the Warrington victim,’ said Clay.
‘When Ms Davis told me, about half an hour ago, when we had a meeting. Are you seriously still going to keep me in custody?’
‘We can approach the Dutch police for assistance. Is there anyone in Amsterdam who could confirm you were there in the suggested time window?’ asked Hendricks.
‘Funnily enough, I didn’t swap contact details with any of the prostitutes I visited on my summer holiday. And guess what? I didn’t get any selfies with them either. Also, also… it was, like, four fucking months ago. They get through dozens of men a day. Do you think t
hey’re going to remember me? I don’t think so, because I wouldn’t remember them, if I tripped over them on the street.’
‘How are you feeling, Mr McKee?’ asked Clay.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Coming back to more recent times. As in yesterday. Wren just asked you how you were.’
Edgar McKee shrugged. ‘He’s autistic. He’s random.’
‘No, he wasn’t being random. I’ve spoken to his father, Neil. You phoned in sick to the abattoir with diarrhoea and vomiting. How can you have a two-hour sexual marathon with a woman if you’ve got gastroenteritis?’
‘I phoned in sick because I wanted a breather from Wren. How would you feel if he was on your neck every minute of your working day? The lad was driving me nuts, and I’d only been with him for a couple of days. When I woke up on Friday, I just couldn’t face it.’
‘Well, as the saying goes, Mr McKee…’ Clay looked up at the CCTV camera filming the interview. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining. If you are found to have done nothing wrong, maybe this could be the lever you can use with the management in the abattoir to get Wren off your neck.’
McKee stood up and folded his arms across his chest.
‘Try to help someone. End up in a cell. You’re damn right I’m not having any more to do with him. Wren? That’s a fucking joke name. He’s more of a fucking albatross. What are you smiling at, Hendricks?’ asked McKee.
‘That was quite a witty play on words. Wren, neck, albatross. I am allowed to smile, Mr McKee.’ Hendricks looked at Clay. ‘We done for now?’
‘Just for now.’ She took out her iPhone and called the front desk. ‘Sergeant Harris, can you come and collect Mr McKee and take him back to his cell. And can you ask Detective Constable Cole to download some CCTV footage from the interview suite on to my laptop.’
She looked at Edgar McKee, read the twists and turns inside his head.
‘Something wrong, Mr McKee?’
The Past
1982
From her bedroom window, she could see her little brother standing perfectly still on the snow-dusted gravel in front of the house, in between the front door, the evil wind that pressed down on the earth and the black taxi that throbbed near the wide-open gateway.
Dressed in a grey coat and woollen hat, with socks that stretched up to below his knees, his lower thighs were exposed to the fierce cold.
She could feel the cold that pinched at his skin.
‘Aren’t you at least going to say goodbye to him?’
Her mother’s voice rose from the downstairs hallway.
‘No!’
Her father sounded like he had no feelings, as if he was colder than the weather outside, like there was nothing solid beneath the shape of his skin.
‘Please?’
‘I’m going to count to three…’
She filled in the silence that followed this phrase of her father’s, the threats, the curses, the darkness, the promised agonies that were housed in his language each time he mouthed it.
Her mother spoke but her voice was like babble, the meaning of the words lost in the bricks and mortar between downstairs and her bedroom.
She looked down at her little brother, standing at an angle to her as he looked at the taxi and the black fumes that poured from the exhaust pipe.
He coughed and shivered but remained like a statue in the place on which he stood.
She tapped on the glass, softly so as not to alert her father to the fact that she was disobeying him during her little brother’s final days at home.
You’re not to look at him! You’re not to talk to him! You’re not to say goodbye to him!
Her bedroom door creaked open and she froze, dreading what was coming into the space where she slept, the space where she escaped.
‘It’s only me…’
She felt the vice around her head unlock. It was Mrs Doyle stepping closer to her. Not him. Not her. Not them.
‘Where’s he going, Mrs Doyle?’
Silence.
‘Away.’
‘Away where?’
‘Away somewhere. I don’t know the details.’
‘Is he coming back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will I ever see him again?’
‘I don’t know.’
She looked out of the window and applied all her concentration to the image of her little brother as the snow started a fresh falling. Still he didn’t move, didn’t shift his head to watch what was drifting from the sky that pressed down on his little head.
I want to remember, I want to remember you, I want to remember what you looked like the last time I saw you.
Her parents’ voices tangled in the space beneath her.
The same tangled sound that had drawn her down the stairs and made her listen to the exchange between her parents.
She recalled the snatches of speech that had made it out of the living room.
‘Mrs Doyle?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘Out of the city.’
‘Out of the city?’
Mrs Doyle sounded confused.
‘He’s being sent away from Liverpool? Right?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s miles and miles away. On his own. He’s so little.’
Below, her parents’ voices faded into a worrying silence.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘I’ve come to tell you. I’m also leaving today.’
She felt the pain inside her swell but said nothing, knew she’d have done the same thing if she had the chance.
She recognised the sound of her father’s footsteps clumping up the stairs.
‘You’d better go, Mrs Doyle.’
‘Just for now, I’m going nowhere, little girl.’
She felt the warmth of Mrs Doyle’s body at her back. The old lady’s hands settled on her shoulders, a gentle weight that assisted gravity and kept her feet firmly planted on the floor.
The front door of the house closed and her mother stepped out, carrying two small suitcases. Her long blonde hair floated behind her as the wind bit down.
Her little brother turned to his mother and she said, ‘Get into the taxi.’
The door of her bedroom opened and her father said, ‘What’s this?’
‘This, sir, is what will happen if you take another step into this young lady’s room. This, sir, is the police. This, sir, is scandal. This, sir, is the end of you in this city. This, sir, is the sum of the terrible things that I know. This, sir, is you versus me.’
Her mother shepherded her little brother towards the taxi.
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘I keep a diary, sir. I would dare. Would you?’
He slammed the door and she felt the lack of his presence in the room.
Her little brother stopped at the open back door of the taxi and looked up at her window, looked at her directly in the eyes. He waved his hand and mouthed, ‘Goodbye, big sister.’
She waved back.
‘Goodbye, little brother.’
Her mother followed him into the back of the taxi and the driver headed the black cab towards the gate.
She knew in her heart that she would never see him again.
The taxi disappeared from view.
‘And, so,’ she said. ‘Off he floats to nowhere.’
Day Four
Saturday, 4th December 2021
Thanatophobia
Fear of Death
99
0.13 am
Winters looked at the printout of the reservation that Edgar McKee had made at the Travelodge on Thursday, 2nd December and felt a weight forming in his heart. During the time window of his reservation, McKee had booked in at 7.31 pm and booked out at 10.13 pm, according to the information provided to him at the reception desk.
Tommy Hart, head of the hotel’s security unit, cued up the CCTV footage from the previous day and asked, ‘Which room? Which floor?’
‘Room 1002, top floor, pl
ease.’
‘I can put the footage on fast forward and slow it down any time someone appears on screen, otherwise we’re going to be spending a lot of time looking at an empty corridor. We’ve got CCTV on each stretch of corridor on every floor. Give me a minute and I’ll tee up the section where Room 1002 happens on the top floor.’
‘Take your time, Tommy. Whenever you’re ready…’
Winters pulled up the picture he had taken of Susan Hurst on his iPhone and showed it to Tommy.
‘Her working name’s Marlene Black. I took this picture of her in her kitchen a few hours ago. She most probably looks entirely different when she’s working, make-up, clothing and hair, but this is the woman we’re looking for on CCTV.’
Tommy broke off from what he was doing and looked at the picture.
‘OK. I know her. By sight. I’ve seen her round and about in the hotel. I knew what she was up to but she’s a discreet operator. Most of the working girls are. We don’t like our hotel being used as a knocking shop and we certainly don’t encourage it, but what happens behind the closed door of a hotel room is private to the people in it. Unless someone’s behaving in a screamingly obvious way, what can we do? Challenge a guest who’ll come back with, how dare you refer to my husband or wife as a hooker? There’s nothing we can say.’
‘It’s a tightrope you’re walking on.’
Winters pulled up Edgar McKee’s mugshot, looking directly into the eye of the camera.
‘This one was taken tonight when he was booked in at Trinity Road. Do you recognise him?’
‘I’ve seen a lot of him. Edgar McKee. Didn’t know his name but it’s on last night’s reservation. Most of the guys up to his tricks come in using pseudonyms and pay with cash. At least he’s not hiding behind a false ID. We’ll go from 7.29 pm and take it from there.’
Five minutes passed on fast forward and there was no one on the top floor where Room 1002 was situated. As 7.34 pm rolled into 7.35 pm, someone stepped out of a lift. Tommy Hart paused and slowed down the footage. It was a man talking on an iPhone and walking towards the camera but it wasn’t Edgar McKee.
